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I suppose I could feel angry, hurt, cheated, or any other number of feelings about what has transpired with the Green Trucks over the past couple of days, but the profound feeling that I have is sadness. I am sad that these people are such profound assholes.

This morning I received a comment on my blog post from someone named Sara at Green Truck. I’m going to re-post it here because it is one of the most astounding things you will ever read, and it confirms for me that the Green Truck people are vermin.

Rarely have I come across a piece of writing that reeked this badly. Let’s go through it. She starts by defending the patty. “Our Mother Trucker Vegan Patties have been made in house with locally sourced ingredients since 2007. ” Classic straw man maneuver, since I never questioned whether the patty was vegan. “We do offer our patty on vegan bread, a bed of kale”… let me stop right there. Um, no, you don’t. There was no vegan bread offered to me, nor was I offered the choice to have it on kale. I was not offered ANY choice. It was served to me on an eggy bun. And when I spoke with the two people in the truck, and they called the owner who immediately confirmed there was egg in the bun, the only thing I was offered as a result was a tortilla. But no choices were offered to me beforehand. “This is up to the customer”… um, no, it is not. And then she pathetically hides behind the non-sequitor of some people like their vegan patties on eggy buns with bacon and cheese! Well, good for them and, for the record, vegans DO NOT LIKE THEIR BURGERS ON EGGY BUNS WITH BACON AND CHEESE YOU SHITHEAD. And a burger called vegan that contains these items IS NOT VEGAN.

“Our menu supports vegans and non-vegans alike” — well, your vegan burger doesn’t support vegans because it contains egg, and your beef burger and chicken pesto sandwich kinda tipped me off that your truck supports non-vegans, even though “supports” is a terrible word choice that shows what a terrible writer you are. But I digress.

“Our Mother Trucker patty is 100% vegan” — here’s the straw man again “and it is the customer’s choice as to how they wish to accompany it.” This is the kind of sentence that really let’s the entire world know what lowlifes these people are. It was not the customer’s choice at all. There was no choice offered. The burger is called the Mother Trucker Vegan Burger, and as served it is not vegan. Nor is the customer notified that oh by the way, if you want your vegan burger to be vegan, you have to speak up and tell us that, even though of course how could you know that, since we tell you on our menu board and our website that it’s vegan, it just isn’t. But hey, it’s your choice. But if you don’t know, and thus don’t speak up, your “vegan” burger will be accompanied by animal products that by definition are not vegan.

And then comes the killer comment: “No deception here.” Are you old enough, or well-enough versed in history, to remember Nixon’s “I am not a crook”? Well, here’s the newest iteration: “No deception here.” Are you realizing at this point what kind of scum these people are? It’s truly shocking.

“On days where we have run out of the vegan bun it is served on an artisanal bun which is listed on printed menus on the truck and it is the customer’s choice if they wish to sans the bun and go with the bed of kale to ensure their meal is vegan.” First of all, sans is not a verb. I think she sansed an education. Second of all, why should I have to change anything to make an item called “vegan burger” vegan? And third, the menu board on the truck describes it only as “Mother Trucker Vegan Burger” and doesn’t say anything about the bun, and neither does the printed menu description from the website:

Your description doesn’t say a damn thing about the bun. But you call it a BURGER and you DO serve it on a bun and you say it’s a VEGAN BURGER so why would any customer ever think that they had to speak up and tell you they don’t want the bun? More to the point, nobody said to me: “We’re out of vegan buns, is a non-vegan bun okay or do you want it on a bed of kale.” Quite the opposite, THEY DIDN’T SAY A WORD. As if I’m supposed to know to ask whether the bun on their vegan burger is vegan or not. And do you know why nobody working there said anything about the bun? Because as I said in my previous post, when I asked the woman working in the truck, she said the Mother Trucker Vegan Burger is ALWAYS served on that eggy bun.

It doesn’t matter if she’s only worked on your truck for a year, a month or a week, it tells me all I need to know about your claim that it’s usually served on a vegan bun and that your truck usually carries both vegan and non-vegan buns. This directly contradicts not only what I experienced but also contradicts what YOUR employee told me.

And then you go on to say, “Our apologies if your experience was confusing.” Well, Samuel Johnson was wrong. Patriotism is not the last refuge of the scoundrel. The last refuge of the scoundrel is claiming that the other side is confused. She does it here, and the douchebag who handles the Green Truck in San Diego did it to me last night when he said, “I can understand your confusion.” There is nothing confusing about the situation. You people are worthless and despicable. You are boils on the ass of humanity, wrapped up in a package of alleged greenness. You think you’re clever and can explain away the obvious but what’s obvious is that you don’t realize how transparent you are. I’m not confused at all. It’s pretty simple: you are poop.

She closes with, “We love our local vegan community and proudly provide delicious, organic fare.” I don’t care if the egg in your vegan burger is delicious egg or organic egg because I’M VEGAN AND I DON’T EAT EGG. As for whether you love the vegan community, I can’t speak to that. There’s all kinds of love. There are parents who love their kids yet burn them with cigarettes. Is that the kind of love you are talking about?

Okay everyone, are you ready for the big surprise? Oh wait, there’s something else I want to talk about before the surprise. It’s that fuckface tool down in San Diego. He whined to me like a baby last night that he was separately owned from Green Truck and that I was harming his business. He also didn’t apologize, for my confusion or otherwise. If he really gave a shit about vegans he would have expressed concern about my vegan burger containing egg, but he didn’t even have it in him to pretend he cared about that. But you know what I saw today? It turns out that Mr. I’m In San Diego And The Los Angeles Green Trucks Are Separate Separate Separate has his own Twitter account for the San Diego Green Truck (@GreenTruck_SD) and this morning he tweeted about the Green Truck Los Angeles being back on Wilshire today! And a few days ago he tweeted about the LA Green Truck being in Santa Monica! Now keep in mind, there is also another twitter account for the GreenTruck (@GreenTruck) but I’m talking about a Twitter that specifically describes itself as the San Diego Green Truck twitter yet promotes the appearances of the LA Green Truck in Los Angeles. And the fact that this San Diego account was tweeting this morning about the Green Truck being on Wilshire today after his email to me last night — without ever apologizing or explaining what happened on Wilshire yesterday — tells you plenty about Mr. San Diego Green Truck Fartlips. He’s a giant, giant asshole. And… not long after I received the comment from Green Truck’s Sara, the tweet on the San Diego twitter account promoting today’s Wilshire appearance was deleted! But fear not, because I screen-shot it before it disappeared and here it is:

So I do want to thank Mr. San Diego Green Truck Crybaby because without his tweet this morning I would have never thought to go back to Green Truck today. Which I did after receiving Sara’s comment, so thank you to Sara as well. And that’s the surprise! I went back to the Green Truck, ordered the Mother Trucker Vegan Burger from the same person who sold it to me yesterday, WHO DID NOT ASK IF I WANTED IT ON KALE OR IN A TORTILLA OR ON A NON-VEGAN BUN OR WHETHER I CARED IF IT WAS EVEN REALLY VEGAN OR ANY OTHER QUESTION WHATSOEVER. She just took my name and money, and then a few minutes later I was given a box marked “vegan” that contained my Mother Trucker Vegan Burger. And here it is, with today’s LA Times to show you that I really went back today and experienced the exact same thing despite the comments and remarks from representatives of both the Los Angeles and Green Trucks defending themselves to the hilt. THE SAME THING HAPPENED AGAIN.

Non-vegan vegan burger. Two days in a row. Sad and disgraceful. Shame on them!

Like I said, it makes me sad. Yesterday was bad enough. But after everyone at Green Truck was made well aware of what happened yesterday, they pulled the same thing again. I know. There’s really only one conclusion that can be drawn. They are knowingly selling a non-vegan burger as a vegan burger. The same woman who sold it to me yesterday didn’t say a word to me when I ordered it today, even though I wore a hat and big sunglasses today and used a different name so there was no way she knew it was me. I was wrong when I said in my post yesterday that she was nice. She’s yet another piece of Green Truck Trash. Is this job really so important to her that she would do this? Are the owners so terrible that she thinks they would fire her in a second if she didn’t stick to the party line and keep her mouth shut about the eggy buns? And speaking of these Dogshit Owners, after all that happened yesterday, and after Mr. San Diego Green Truck told me last night that he spoke to them about it, they send that truck out again today with none of their supposed- vegan buns (remember, the woman on the truck said the vegan burger ALWAYS comes on the eggy buns) and with no instructions to the staff to at least warn people that, as served, the vegan burger isn’t vegan at all. I can’t tell you when I’ve encountered such pathetic, despicable people.

But we’ll see what happens. My original tweets about the story yesterday were retweeted to tens of thousands of people today. And my blog post about the incident drove record traffic to my blog. The vegan community in LA is big but it’s not that big that word won’t get around to everyone. Ditto the Green community here. Word is spreading about the kind of people involved with the Green Trucks. The proper authorities in LA are being notified about the risks to those with egg allergens, among other things. And soon everyone will know what kind of green these people really care about.

(Did I mention that the dickwad in San Diego says the buns on his vegan burgers have always been vegan? And that I believe him? He’s a dickwad for other reasons, and not nearly as big a dickwad as the Los Angeles Green Truck dickwads, but a dickwad nonetheless. But don’t worry about his vegan burgers not being vegan. Because he assures me they are. So if you want an actual vegan Green Truck Mother Trucker Vegan Burger, all you have to do is drive to San Diego! Easy Peasy, right?)

UPDATE:

I received an email this evening from David Holtze who claims to be the owner/operator of the Green Truck San Diego, which he says is a “separate business LLC” — this despite a shared website and a shared fax number on that website. He asks that I remove any reference to “San Diego” in my post because it is “causing harm to my business.” It seems to me that what is causing harm to his business is an association with a Green Truck in Los Angeles that is selling non-vegan vegan burgers. My post did not say that this happened in San Diego — it explicitly stated that this happened in Los Angeles. In fact, my only reference to San Diego was in a general sentence that began “It’s hard to operate a food truck in LA (or San Diego)” and so I will remove the words “San Diego” from that sentence as a courtesy to Mr. Holtze and I will point out that he says he has served only local vegan focaccia buns since the day he has opened. I am happy to hear this since it means there is at least one Green Truck out there whose vegan burgers are actually vegan. So if you live in San Diego, go enjoy a vegan burger from his Green Truck and write him a positive review on Yelp if you like it, since he says he received a negative one tonight.

But obviously Mr. Holtze’s (vegan) beef is not with me but with the Green Truck in Los Angeles that is serving non-vegan vegan burgers. That is what is causing any perceived damage to his business. Does Mr. Holtze not realize that he shares a website with the Green Truck in Los Angeles? Does Mr. Holtze not realize that this website lists his weekly San Diego schedule alongside the weekly Los Angeles schedule? Does Mr. Holtze not realize that there is nothing to alert a visitor to this website that the Green Trucks are separately owned? And so clearly, his concern should not be directed toward this blog, but to the owner of the Green Truck in Los Angeles that is selling non-vegan vegan burgers. It seems that Mr. Holtze wants to have his vegan burger and eat it too, associating himself with Green Truck Los Angeles when it comes to a joint website, yet separating himself from Green Truck Los Angeles when there’s a problem.

Two final things to note in this update: Mr. Holtze’s buns in San Diego don’t even contain honey, and Mr. Holtze needs to stop slanderously using the word “slanderous.” Furthermore, he must immediately apologize to me at the top of the joint Green Truck website for his reckless and actionable comment that my post is causing harm to his business, and he should insist that SEPARATELY OWNED Green Truck Los Angeles apologize to the vegan community right under his apology to me, and then for heaven’s sake he should learn not to shoot the messenger!

My Original Post:

I haven’t posted in a while but this truck drove me to it. This isn’t a typical complaint about a vegan food item not being vegan. This is bigger than that. This is what appears to be an intentional fraud perpetrated on the vegan community. And it gets worse.

Back in May I went to the LA Vegan Beer Fest. It was great. Lots of vegan beer and food. Including the Green Truck. I’d heard about their Mother Trucker Vegan Burger and really wanted to try it. And I did. And it was good.

The Mother Trucker Vegan Burger is something that’s always on the menu at the Green Truck. Along with a number of meat items. But of course at the LAVBF they could only sell vegan items, so instead of their meat sandwiches they had a few different vegan offerings. But I got the Mother Trucker since I’d never had it before. And this is what it looked like:

Mother Trucker Vegan Burger at LA Vegan Beer Fest.

It looks good, right? Well, here’s what it looked like when it was served to me today on Wilshire near LACMA:

Mother Trucker Vegan Burger. I mean “Vegan” Burger.

If there’s one thing I can spot after 3+ years as a vegan, it’s an eggy bun. That bricohy shine gives it away every time. So I asked the two people working in the truck if the bun contained egg. The woman taking the orders said she thought so and looked at the man making the orders who said yes, he thought it did have egg. And let me say right now that both these people were extremely friendly and seemed like they wanted to do the right thing. So much so that the man making the food immediately volunteered to call the owner and ask. As I stood there, he called, he asked, and he was IMMEDIATELY told that yes, the buns contain egg. After he ended the phone call I politely said, “Okay, well then your vegan burger isn’t vegan.” And they agreed. And the man making the food offered to re-make it in a tortilla as a wrap, so I said okay, and he did, and it was tasty.

So a lot of credit goes to the people working the truck. There was no eye-rolling, they understood the problem, and they tried to rectify it. They didn’t act like they were well aware of the problem from other people asking. But maybe I’m a sucker and they knew they were selling non-vegan vegan burgers. But I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, because like I said, they only seemed like they wanted to help.

It’s the owner of the Green Truck who’s the piece of shit. Here is a guy who knew immediately that the buns contain egg, who knowingly markets the burger as a vegan burger to the point that the word “vegan” is in the name of the burger, and who was a vendor at LA Vegan Beer Fest, so I KNOW it was made clear to him at that time what were and weren’t permissible ingredients. Oh, and I should mention that when I asked the people working the truck if that’s the bun that the Mother Trucker Vegan Burger is always served on they both said yes.

This is unacceptable.

My first email was to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. What if people with an egg allergy are buying this burger because they think it’s vegan, but being served egg? That’s a real problem. My next email was to the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs. This seems to me to be a situation where we are knowingly being sold something that is not the thing we are told we are being sold. The third email was to the Los Angeles County Agricultural Department’s Weights & Measures Division. They are the ones who regulate consumer overcharges, farmers market fraud, etc.

As I said, it’s one thing for someone to incorrectly market a non-vegan item as vegan. It’s another for someone to knowingly pass off a non-vegan item as vegan. But it’s a whole other thing when someone participates in the LA Vegan Beer Fest, takes advantage of the publicity afforded that event to promote themselves as vegan-friendly and ingratiate themselves with the vegan community, and then turns around and does something like this.

Oh, and did I mention the emails going to the movie studios and production companies around town, since the Green Truck does a lot of their business on a catering basis at those facilities? Whoever might be thinking of hiring them or bringing them back needs to know what is going on and what their employees are being subjected to. Because if the vegan burger isn’t vegan, how do we know if the “organic” ingredients are really organic, or if the “local” ingredients are really local?

This business needs to be fully investigated by the proper authorities. And believe me, it will be now. And every single violation that is noted — such as no conspicuous litter receptacle as required by LAMC 80.73(b)2(D — will be reported. The truck extends into a red zone? It will now be photographed and reported. Oh and guess what, they were just in Santa Monica yesterday selling their non-vegan vegan burger. Were they 35 feet from the nearest truck as required by that permit? That’s another email.

It’s hard to operate a food truck in LA (<<courtesy redaction>>) even when you’re being honest with your customers. I can only imagine how hard it must be to retain your permits if there’s a steady stream of clear violations being properly documented and reported. Hmmm. Maybe it’s impossible?